Pretties (Uglies, #2) by Scott Westerfeld Published by Simon & Schuster Simon Pulse Pages: 370
Goodreads
Gorgeous. Popular. Perfect.
Perfectly wrong.
Tally has finally become pretty. Now her looks are beyond perfect, her clothes are awesome, her boyfriend is totally hot, and she's completely popular. It's everything she's ever wanted.
But beneath all the fun -- the nonstop parties, the high-tech luxury, the total freedom -- is a nagging sense that something's wrong. Something important. Then a message from Tally's ugly past arrives. Reading it, Tally remembers what's wrong with pretty life, and the fun stops cold.
Now she has to choose between fighting to forget what she knows and fighting for her life -- because the authorities don't intend to let anyone with this information survive.
4 Nuts
Now this is what I remember loving when I think of the Uglies Trilogy.
Where UGLIES is the intro to this world PRETTIES is the exploration of the meat of it. The world the Pretties live in is very different from that of the Uglies and the books are sort of the same way. UGLIES is a lot grittier, a lot messier of a book. PRETTIES is shined up and orderly, the “Pretty-fied” book.
One of the reasons I enjoy this book more than UGLIES is the introduction of Zane. Zane > David any time of day. Fuck David. And fuck Shae, god I really hate that girl. That much has certainly not changed. But Zane is sweetness where David is just…there. Zane is passion where David is dull. If I were Tally I’d pick Zane too. Zane was practically the OG book boyfriend for me. My swoon worthy character numero uno.
I sort of love that Tally is able to be herself without the help of any drug or nanos. She’s a strong mind, a strong character, and most importantly a strong female role model for the young readers of this series. Even though I was a bit older than the target audience when I read this the first time Tally appealed to me and I always remembered her as one of the best strong female leads of the time.
Since then of course many books have done the strong female thing better. Tally is definitely taken advantage of a lot in this series but she does always work hard to take the power back. The Crims are all such personalities: Strong and smart. Except Parris. Fuck him too. But I still enjoy reading about the Crims.
The science portion of the dystopian really starts to come into play in PRETTIES. They discover a lot more about how the world is made to be how it is and how control this taken. This continues into SPECIALS and my analytical brain appreciates actual explanation. Sure it’s not necessarily the most realistic, but I kind of like that better than a hyper realistically scientific dystopian. Too real, too terrifying. No thanks.
I love PRETTIES and I’m hoping SPECIALS will be as good as I remember it was well. UGLIES didn’t really hold up quite as well but PRETTIES definitely did.
Next up will be a reread of SPECIALS, after which I cannot decide whether I want to bother with a reread of EXTRAS or not before moving on to IMPOSTERS.So I’m leaving it up to you. Do you want me to reread EXTRAS before IMPOSTERS or just post what I remember about it? Share your thoughts on the matter in the comments and I will do whichever option gets the most votes.
From my shelf to yours,
Erin
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